Christopher D. Smith v. Jody Lamb

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted July 24, 2023 *
Decided July 25, 2023
Before
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 22-2819
CHRISTOPHER D. SMITH,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
JODY LAMB, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
No. 21-CV-1295-JPS
J. P. Stadtmueller,
Judge.
O R D E R
Christopher Smith, a Wisconsin prisoner who fell while working in a prison
kitchen and injured his back, sued prison staff members for deliberate indifference to
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 22-2819 Page 2
his medical needs. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court entered summary judgment
for the defendants. He appeals that decision, and we affirm.
Smith, who is stationed at Fox Lake Correctional Institution, stumbled and
injured his lower back while cleaning in the prison kitchen. He maintains that he
promptly told kitchen staff about the incident. At the time, however, he did not ask to
be seen in the health services unit. (He testified later that he was under the impression
that prison staff should have filed an incident report and sent him to the health services
unit.) He completed his shift as usual, then walked to his housing unit and took an anti-
inflammatory drug. The next day, he told kitchen staff that he could work a light shift,
and they allowed him to do so while advising him to submit a health-services request.
He did, but only three days after his fall, when his ache turned into sharp pain. A nurse
saw him two days later. Meanwhile, he continued to report for work.
After amending his complaint, Smith asked that counsel be recruited on his
behalf. He explained that he had been unsuccessful trying to secure a lawyer, and he
believed that the difficulty of his case exceeded his ability to litigate it.
The defendants moved then for summary judgment, arguing that Smith, by his
own admission and actions, did not initially suffer from a serious medical need. When
deposed, Smith recounted feeling that the pain after his fall was “probably nothing,”
and he was able to complete his shift, walk to and from his housing unit, and return to
work in the following days. Smith also failed, defendants argued, to follow the standard
process of submitting a health-services request. The defendants added that, in the
aftermath of a workplace injury, no policy at Fox Lake requires non-medical prison
officials, like kitchen staff, to complete an incident report or send an inmate to the
health-services unit.
The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The
court explained that no reasonable jury could find that Smith suffered from an
objectively serious medical condition at the time of the injury or during the next few
days. And even if he experienced a serious injury, added the court, he was treated
within a week and produced no evidence that would convince a reasonable jury that
the defendants acted with deliberate indifference by unnecessarily prolonging his pain.
The court also denied Smith’s request for recruitment of counsel, remarking that Smith
was able to articulate his arguments clearly and properly oppose the summary
judgment motion, and, in any event, the undisputed evidence did not support his
claims.

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No. 22-2819 Page 3
On appeal, Smith challenges the summary judgment ruling on his deliberate
indifference claims. Smith mainly asserts that whether he alerted the defendants to his
injury the day he fell is a material, disputed fact. But even if we assume, as did the
district court, that he told the defendants about his pain that day, no reasonable jury
could conclude on this record that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to an
excessive risk to Smith’s health. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 847 (1994); Whiting
v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 839 F.3d 658, 662 (7th Cir. 2016). Smith produced no
evidence that they knew that he faced a substantial risk of serious harm. See Palmer v.
Franz, 928 F.3d 560, 563–64 (7th Cir. 2019). (To the contrary, the record reflects that
Smith himself believed that his fall did not seriously harm him at the time and, indeed,
he completed his shift the day of the incident and continued to report to work in the
days that followed.) And even if the defendants did know of a substantial risk, they did
not disregard it: They allowed Smith to work a light shift and reminded him that if he
wished, he could submit a health services request as per protocol.
Smith also contends that the court abused its discretion by not recruiting counsel
to represent him. But the court applied the correct standard, which we articulated in
Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647 (7th Cir. 2007) (en banc), and properly exercised its
discretion. See also Watts v. Kidman, 42 F.4th 755, 760 (7th Cir. 2022). Relatedly, Smith
suggests that the court should have ruled on his request for recruitment of counsel
apart from ruling on the summary judgment motion. But the cases he relies on, see, e.g.,
Tucker v. Randall, 948 F.2d 388, 390 (7th Cir. 1991), merely express concern over courts
adjudicating a case without ruling on a motion for recruitment of counsel; here, by
contrast, the court adequately justified its decision to deny the motion.
AFFIRMED

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